New Sociology

From : Cyril Lemieux, interview, SCIENCE HUMAINES, mai 2010.

This universal perspective is founded on what you have called « a grammar of actions ».
What do you intend by this concept?

The term « grammar » has a long history: it is present in linguistics, obviously, but also with Wittgenstein or in the pragmatic sociology founded by L. Boltanski and I. Thévenot, the school from which I come. Yet I give it a specific meaning, as I define grammar as that set of rules to be followed in order to be recognized in a given community as one who acts and judges correctly. These are rules one follows unthinkingly ( one can speak French correctly without a theoretical mastering of its grammar, or syntax…), but whose respest is expected by the other members of the community. In this aspect, the term grammar is close enough to that of culture. But the risk in speaking of culture is to drift toward culturalism and hence relativism and thus toward that relativism I am particularly concerned to avoid. A reflection in terms of rules , on the contrary, leads to analogies between human groups. For grammars are not belief systems, but universal anthropological competencies which find expression in rules whose content is,in turn, historical and evolutionary.